High School Course-Taking and Educational Reform
The current debate about the condition of American public schools is reminiscent of the opening lines of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities--these are either the best of times or the worst of times. After surveying a wide range of studies and reports Gerald Bracey, for example, declares that American "schools are performing as well or better than ever. ... '' Following a similar survey, David Berliner declares that "the American school system, as a whole, has been and continues to be a remarkable success.'' John Chubb and Terry Moe, on the other hand, point to dismal student performance on numerous indicators and maintain that American schools are in terrible shape, and specifically claim that the highly touted "excellence reforms'' of the 1980's "are destined to fail.'' Each side accuses the other of distorting the historical record in order to advance a brazen political agenda, either the discrediting and dismantling of public education, as Mr. Bracey and other "revisionists'' see it, or the defense of an obdurate and incompetent governmental monopoly, as supporters of choice maintain.
While much of this debate is inspired by deep partisan and philosophical differences, at least some of the assumptions upon which the participants base their arguments can be tested by empirical, historical research. Such research cannot definitively answer whether these are the best or worst of times in American education, but it can illuminate whether certain aspects of the system are getting better, getting worse, or simply drifting without direction. We recently completed a study for the U.S. Education Department's office of educational research and improvement about national trends in high school course-taking that offers some insights into these issues. Our study, which looks at a series of national surveys of high school course-taking from 1928 to 1973 and transcript studies from 1982 and 1990, reveals that neither side in the current debate has accurately understood the trends in secondary education.
Contrary to the revisionist claim, for example, things are not better than ever in our high schools, if by better they mean that students are taking more rigorous, academic courses than previous generations. In fact, American secondary students are taking fewer academic courses than were students in the late 1920's and, we believe, many of the academic courses they are taking are academic in name only. The American high school still serves as a custodial institution for large numbers of students whose education is second rate at best. Nevertheless, critics of public schools have also erred by failing to note that the "excellence'' movement of the 1980's has resulted in significant improvements on the secondary level. Such reforms as tougher high school graduation requirements have prompted secondary students to take substantially more academic courses in the past decade. Contrary to the arguments put forth by advocates of choice, the supposedly intractable American educational system can, in fact, be...
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